This Christmas
by VilyaSage
Summary: It's Christmas Eve in Vale, and while Garet enjoys one of his favorite Christmas activities dinner Jenna can't help but think about everything that happened last year...


**This Christmas**

A/N: Hi! I bet you thought you'd never see me again. Well...I'm back. HA! And with a Christmas oneshot, too. Enjoy your read.

* * *

Soft music played from a music box on the mantel as the snow fell outside. It was the kind of hard, driving, dumping snow that kept everyone inside until the sun finally shone again, or until the sky cleared to reveal a dusting of stars above a world of white. The windows were frosted at the edges in spiky patterns reminiscent of pine branches, behind which burned holly-enthroned candles. 

It was Christmas Eve in Vale.

The smell of fresh baking filled the kitchen of Jenna's home. She had been asked several times to help her mother with the cooking for the evening, but each time she had politely declined. She preferred, tonight, to sit in the warmth of her window and stare out at the cold of the blizzard. With a thought, she lit the candle on the sill beside her, its wick bursting into bright flame above the red wax. She stared at it instead of the snow for a while. After a few long, silent minutes, she sighed.

"Jenna! Come downstairs, dessert is ready!" She smiled just slightly. That was Garet, using the best persuasion he could think of – food. She got up from the window and came slowly, almost hesitantly down the stairs. She was almost always hesitant in her walking now, but it was barely noticeable most of the time. She stopped on the bottom step, though, savoring for a moment the sight of her family – and Garet, but he was practically family too, especially at big dinners – through the doorway that led into the dining and living rooms. The four of them were seated at the table, with an empty chair waiting at Jenna's place. Behind and to the right of them there grew a pine tree, lavishly decorated with garlands and ornaments and psynergy lights that Ivan had _promised_ would not burn anything, this time.

They looked like the essence of Christmas, for just a moment. That moment made Jenna almost unbearably sad, for reasons she did not understand.

Well, no, that wasn't true. She did understand them, perfectly. She just didn't want to think about them. Not now, not on Christmas.

She sat in her usual chair, next to her mother and across from Garet and Felix. The spread on the table was exquisite, as it was every year – her mother was one of the best cooks in all of Vale. Jenna could remember envying that, wishing to learn every secret of her mother's favorite art. She could remember barely being taller than the countertops, straining to watch and listen at the same time as her mother patiently explained how to roll a pie crust or measure spices for spaghetti sauce.

Jenna still loved her cooking, but she had other arts to focus on now. Psynergy wasn't at all the same as cooking, but it had been the biggest part of her life for such a long time that it was hard to give up. And it was useful, in both practical and unusual ways. There was rarely a winter day when it wasn't nice to be able to keep herself warm, for example.

She wondered if her mother ever missed those days, cooking together. If she thought Jenna had just stopped caring. If going through life always had to mean _losing_ things.

Jenna shook her head once, hard, trying to rattle those thoughts out of her mind. It was _Christmas_, she reminded herself. The happiest holiday Vale celebrated. The one where you gave gifts to those you loved and watched their faces light up like the candles in the windows. The one that was meant to add warmth and brightness to the dead of winter.

She nearly choked on her food, setting her fork down quickly. So much for trying to turn her thoughts.

"I guess Isaac and Mia won't be making it over tonight for dessert," Garet said sullenly. It was a tradition with the Adepts to enjoy Christmas Eve dessert together, and to open their gifts to each other together as well.

"Oh, come now. Snow's never stopped Mia before, and _nothing_ in all of Weyard could stop Isaac from following behind her." Felix grinned, an expression he didn't usually make.

"Those two are just adorable together." Jenna and Felix looked at their mother, then at each other. Felix raised one eyebrow, and Jenna shrugged. Their parents had obviously never caught the occasions where Mia was dragging Isaac around town by the fringe of his scarf. That wasn't nearly as adorable as it was mildly frightening.

"We can wait a while and see if they come, if you'd like," Felix continued, looking at Jenna a bit differently now. He elbowed Garet – hard – in the ribs; the Mars Adept was eyeing the plate of warm cookies on the table with open anticipation. The redhead yelped, giving Felix a shove. Felix shoved back, and within seconds both of them had fallen from their chairs and were on the floor, laughing.

_Not long ago, that would have ended in a fistfight_, Jenna thought, a shadow of a smile crossing her face. _At least they finally get along, most of the time_. Felix and Garet had reconciled their differences almost a year ago exactly, and had been working on it ever since. Typically, it was slow progress, but they seemed to have made a special effort on this holiday.

"I don't think I feel like dessert right now, actually. You guys enjoy it, though." Jenna knew her smile was forced, but she was hoping most of them couldn't see through it. And though she knew Felix always could, she also knew he wouldn't follow her if it was apparent she didn't want to be followed.

She made her way slowly back up the stairs to her room. It was still snowing heavily outside, and the wind was whipping it around now with a vengeance. It was the strongest Christmas snow Jenna could remember, except for the one holiday she had spent in Prox. Certainly it was the worst Vale had been hit with in a while.

She went over to her window again, sitting down where she had been before, next to the lit red candle. She rested her forehead against the window glass, trying to lose herself in the swirling snow. It wasn't working, the same way it hadn't been working before.

Her thoughts returned constantly to the emptiness, the hole that she couldn't fill. Last year at this time, they had all been at Isaac's, sitting in front of his fireplace watching Garet tear open his gifts with more energy than he showed for anything else in his life, even food. The fire had been crackling and popping, the house had been warmed and scented of pine and sugar, and outside a soft snow made it feel like Christmas.

This year was so different. Ivan was holed up in Kraden's old house, studying his alchemy books. Isaac and Mia were probably together, but even that tenacious Mercury Adept wouldn't want to go out in a storm like this. Sheba had wanted to come, but had been held up on the other side of the Goma Mountains due to the heavy snowfall and bad traveling conditions.

Jenna's eyes flickered to the shelf over the mantel. The music box had long ago wound down. She got up and rewound it again, setting it down as it began to play. Beside it there was the piece of fused sand she had created the first time she'd tried real Psynergy. Next to that was a small row of books, and after those was a short dagger in its sheath.

Jenna smiled slightly as she stopped at that dagger. It had served on her adventure in every possible use for a knife that she could think of, and a few she couldn't have without a _very_ pressing deadline. She didn't carry it anymore, though; she'd received a new knife a few years ago as a Christmas gift.

Beside the knife was a carved wooden box. Her smile disappeared, and one hand reached out to rest on the box's lid, to run fingers over the intricate design and smooth wood.

_"You're the only other person I know who can play it and has any interest in it at all. So I wanted you to have one." He smiled at her, perfectly pleased with himself._

_"But…I mean, I'm not very good at it. You know that."_

_"Well, no." He laughed at her angry expression. "But you get better at it every day. And maybe having one of your own will inspire you to practice more." She opened the lid of the box as he watched, removing a finely crafted silver flute. She brought it to her lips and played one soft note. His eyebrows rose in surprise._

_"Isn't that it?" she asked, looking up at him. "The one I started with?"_

_"It is, indeed."_

This had been a Christmas gift, too, from last year. Jenna opened the box again and admired the craft of the instrument, but she didn't pick it up. She had played only that one note on it, and never touched it again. She didn't even think she knew _that_ much anymore.

She closed the lid rather harder than she'd meant to, shaking her head and returning to the window. Christmas last year had been perfect. It had been one of the best holidays of her life, surrounded by her friends and her family. The two were almost one and the same, really, by then, after so long.

_"I love Christmas!" Garet sauntered down the path to Vale's gate, grinning. _

_"You're just excited because it's warmed up today. It's not quite freezing anymore." Ivan gave Garet a playful shove, into a thawing snowdrift. "That never gets old." _

_"Neither will you, if you keep doing that, you little--!" Garet leapt from the snow, soaking wet, and chased Ivan for several minutes. When the other Adepts caught up to them, they were both out of breath on the soggy ground, and equally wet._

_"You boys," Sheba said with a disappointed shake of her head. _

They had been going down to the beach. It was about an hour's walk, due to some shifts in geography that had occurred at their adventure's end, and they had spent most of the trip in easy silence. Some clouds had been gathering on the horizon, and Mia and Felix had spent a deal of time debating about whether or not they were snow clouds, until Picard had assured them that it was far too warm for real snow.

Nobody ever questioned how the mariner knew these things. In matters like this, he was almost always right. They had spent several lazy hours walking along the beach, having a snowball fight and daring each other to dip into the frigid water. Garet had come up with the brilliant idea of building snowcastles, so they did that, too. Mia and Picard had teamed up on a veritable ice palace, made of snow from the beach and frozen water from the ocean. The other structures paled in comparison.

Jenna's thoughts came to an abrupt stop as her head snapped toward the window again. It was snowing as hard as ever, impossible to see much past the window at all. But it had been there, she was sure of it. She'd heard, in the relative silence of her room, the unmistakable sound of something falling into very deep snow. As though it had come from…

_The roof!_ Jenna turned toward the door, headed for the stairs at a run.

_They were surveying the Mercury Adepts' work, walking carefully along the halls of the giant ice structure. It was already starting to melt in the warm day, but it was certainly a work to be proud of. Jenna in particular liked the icy dragon sculpture standing guard over the entrance._

_All at once the wind picked up, and rain started pouring down from the heavy grey clouds. The Adepts groaned collectively – this wasn't going to be fun to walk back in. But they'd deal with it somehow._

_They left the ice castle, with Isaac remarking on how the waves had risen quite high. Mia and Felix turned to look with him, nodding their agreement. Picard frowned, sighing in annoyance._

_"I left my gloves behind in the castle. I'll only be a minute." He went back inside quickly, trying to remember where he might have left them. _

_The Adepts stood in the growing storm for a full ten minutes before deciding to go in and help him look._

Jenna rushed down the stairs, her mind racing. She was entirely not focused, and moving much to quickly. She stumbled halfway down, her speed causing her to roll and tumble the rest of the way. She landed at the bottom, struggling to her feet again.

"Jenna? Is everything all right?" Her father was calling her, and she could hear the scrape of chairs as Felix and Garet got to their feet. She ignored them all, collecting herself and running to the door. She threw it open and jumped out into the snow.

Melting a path in front of her, she raced around to her side of the house. She could hardly see for the blizzard whipping about, and she had no coat or hat or gloves to keep out the cold, but that didn't matter. She was _sure_ she'd heard it. She only knew one person who'd _ever_ made such a sound.

But despite all her searching and melting of snow, she found no one there. No one at all. Desperate, she started to circle the house, psynergy clearing her path as she shouted into the wind.

_They found him out cold in the room farthest back, determining that he had slipped on the ice and hit his head. Mia slipped also as she tried to get to him, and as Isaac tried to catch her he fell, too. Soon all of them were on their faces or backs on the slick ice, and no closer to Picard than they had been. _

_There was a flash and a crash, lightning and thunder. The world around them turned into shattered ice and freezing water._

Jenna sank to her knees at the very back of the house, defeated. No one was there. It had been a trick of the wind, or her own mind inventing sounds because of the direction her thoughts had been taking.

Her heart skipped as she felt warm, dry arms wrap around her, and throw her coat over her shoulders. She stood, turned and looked up expectantly, breathlessly. She saw Felix looking down at her, and her hopes crashed again. She did the only thing she could think to do, anymore, and buried her face in her brother's shoulder, sobbing. He wrapped his arms around her tighter, holding onto his sister.

_When Jenna had come to again, the beach had been in ruins. Many of the trees growing near the shoreline were strewn about the sand, and the other Adepts were just as dispersed. Ivan and Sheba were already conscious, and one by one they managed to wake the others._

_They remained on the beach well into the night, searching for him, but Picard was nowhere to be found. They walked the length of the beach as far as they could, but it was cooling down again, and they were wet and tired and sore. Without saying anything, they left the beach and returned to Vale. They gave up_.

"We gave up," Jenna said softly. "We left him somewhere to _die_. On _Christmas_. We never _found_ him. And I…I thought, I thought I heard him, falling from the, from the roof like he always did…at Christmas…" Jenna was starting to shake, from the cold and, as the adrenaline wore off, from the tumble down the stairs, and from the feeling of loss.

"We did everything we could have done." Felix's voice was soft, too, and Jenna heard the thickness of it. He wasn't tearless, either.

"He was my _best friend_, Felix." She pulled away and looked up at him. "He is the _reason_ I am _standing_ here." She shook her head, wiping irritatingly at her tears. "How can we celebrate? How is it possible?"

"We have to." Felix was resolute. "We have to, because no matter what happened to him he would want us to enjoy our moments while we had them." He sighed a little and his arms slackened some, hit by the weight of his own memories. "He said as much to me, once, though not in such personal terms."

"Felix…" But Jenna couldn't think of anything more to say. After another long moment, the two of them walked slowly back to the house. They went inside, and Jenna couldn't help but sense an ending as she shut the door behind her. She walked up the stairs to her room, closing her own door. The music box played its last few notes as Jenna walked to the windowsill and blew out her red candle.

* * *

The end. 

But what follows could also be considered the end. An alternate ending of sorts. Take it or leave it as you will.

* * *

The next morning, Jenna walked outside to a world of snow and white. Most of what she had cleared around her house had been filled in overnight, but it was late enough in the morning that most of the town was also awake, clearing paths and wishing each other a happy Christmas. 

She turned to call to her brother and her love, and froze almost as solid as the ice on the windows.

Tied around the doorknob on the outside was a tattered piece of red cloth.

* * *

The end. Again. 

And you guys thought I was done with writing, didn't you?

Happy Holidays!

--Vil


End file.
